Travis County Commissioners Court
April 21, 2009,
Item 26
the legislative item is number 26.consider and take appropriate action on legislative matters including a, the status report on the 81st Texas legislature.
b, status report on Travis County legislative priorities, including house bills 612, 1119 --
>> I知 not going to make you read it.
we talked about that last week with these.
we're not going to make you read all those bills.
>> so just say legislative priorities including -- thanks so much.
item c, house bill 692 relating to the jurisdiction of statutory county courts.
item d, senate bill 1323 and house bill 1906 relating to the amount of a surcharge assess odd conviction of certain intoxicated driver offenses on the driver's license of certain persons who complete a drug court program.
item e, senate bill 2369 relating to a preference for road construction bids that provide for the use of rubberized asphalt paving material.
item f, house bill 2859 relating to notice requirements for a county selling surplus or salvage property.
item g, senate bill 294 relating to option nal fees on the registration on a vehicle imposed by a county.
and item h, house bill 1271 relating to the required use of tax increment financing to provide affordable housing in certain reinvestment zones.
>> Commissioners, dietz ek ekstein, intergovernmental relations.
happy to be with you.
we're moving from that part of the session where committees have really been working almost literally day and night hearing lots of bills.
we've now got committees getting to the point where they're reporting their bills out, sending them to the calendars in their respective bodies, either the house or senate.
I think we will over the next couple of weeks see the focus of our action move from the committees to the floor.
the good news for us in that context is that of all the major legislative priorities that the county has identified, all but one of those bills has had a committee hearing, which we think is a good success rate for us.
many of them have been reported out.
what I壇 like to do is just take a minute if I can of the court's time.
we have a copy of what we call our blue sheet, which is our list of legislative priorities and was under your item b, Commissioner.
I壇 like to hand out a new copy of the blue shirt and just highlight some of the accomplishments we've had already in that area.
a major focus of our efforts this session was on land use and environmental issues pertaining to the county.
so let me just run through some of the major pieces of legislation we had and tell you where we are in the process on each of those.
on the buffer zone bill, which is house bill 4175, that has been heard in committee.
we're waiting on a committee vote on that, but we have had good feedback from committee members and that bill was a bill that was the home builders group here in Austin announced that they would support that bill.
so we're excited about that bill.
the e.t.j.
bill was heard in committee on April eighth.
it had more opposition to it.
it is also pending in committee.
the hill country coalition bill, which at this point does not include Travis County, but is a limited land use authority for some hill country counties and which could be amended to include Travis County, has already passed out of committee on April 6.
our impact fee bills, which would allow the county to collect limited impact fees for transportation improvements necessary to subdivisions or construction that is going on in our unincorporated areas, that was heard in committee on April 16th.
representative bouldin has an off premise billboards bill, off premise signs committee bill that was heard in committee on April 2nd.
senator watson had an almost identical version that passed out of committee yesterday in the senate.
so that bill is moving.
storm water management bill, senator watson's version has passed out of committee and is on its way to the local and uncontested calendar, which if all -- if our luck holds, we'll get that out of the senate and over to the house very quickly.
in the meantime, representative eddie rodriguez has a house version of that bills that still waiting a committee hearing.
and finally, utility relocation, which has not yet been scheduled for committee hearing.
of the six or seven priorities we had in the land use and environmental area, only the utility relocation bill has not already been heard in committee.
let me just identify briefly some of the other priority issues that the county identified.
the warrant fee increase bill has been favorably reported out of committee on April 16th.
the longevity pay fix bill that would have allowed quawl filing Travis County judges to get longevity pay from the county for service -- for combined service as a statutory county court at law judge and a district judge.
that has already passed the senate and is pending in the house.
the bill to create a presiding criminal court judge here in Travis County, which judge perkins came and visited with the court about, was heard in committee on April 8th.
and judge steeg's bill about early payment of court fees is also penning in committee.
so we feel good about the fact that we've at least gotten committee hearings on all those bills.
that is my report for today on the blue sheet content.
we also have a copy of the red sheet, which is bills upon which the county has taken a position not necessarily legislative priorities.
in fact, some of these bills we took a position on because they were legislative priorities and I want to mention two bills very relevant to that today.
by way of briefing the court.
senate bill 700 is a bill related to revenue caps filed by senator dan patrick from houston.
and that bill, the court discussed that bill along with a group of other appraisal cap and revenue cap bills and took a position against it earlier on in the session.
that bill has moved out of the senate committee and we are anxious that it is -- that they will be push to go get it to the senate floor.
we did not post it in time for this week's, but we'll post it for next week, but in the meantime would like to provide information to all your offices about the bill and maybe ask if you would make some calls to our senators, senator watson and senator wentworth, this week about those bills and perhaps we will ask the court to take action as a court next week on that bill.
the other bill is senate bill 402 by senator kevin eltife, which would swap out a one-quarter cent increase in the sales tax for a decrease in the rollback rate from eight percent to five percent.
which of course would make it more problematic when the county was trying to raise its budget.
as you know, we discuss that had in court before.
there are concerns with that swap.
first of all, the sales tax is inherently a more volatile form of revenue for a county, and therefore during down times, for instance, sales tax tends to decline faster than property taxes do.
number 2, sales taxes are at least somewhat regressive and therefore will -- an increase in sales tax hits working families and low income families harder than it hits higher income families and more so than the property tax -- than a property tax increase would.
so because of those reasons, we'll provide some information to all the offices, but those two bills have both passed out of the finance committee and I anticipate an effort to try to get them to the floor.
and we'll be back next week with a request that the court actually take a formal position as a court on that.
they've already voted to oppose those bills, I just neglected to post them on this week's calendar.
that is my update, Commissioner Gomez, with respect to items a and b.
and now we can take up the other specific bills unless there are any questions from the court.
>> on c, the house bill 692 --
>> house bill 692.
this is a progress report on that bill.
if y'all recall, this is the bill filed by representative butter solomons from carrollton that would have given jurisdiction over state jail felony cases to county courts at law.
the concern that our judges had about that and that the court I think shared was that this would require really a reconfiguration of how we allocate cases, even how we use space inside the courthouse because of the different sets of rules that operate for state jail felonies as operate for misdemeanors.
currently county courts at laws have jurisdiction over misdemeanor cases.
they have, for example, six-person juries, all that would have to be reconfigured if they were given jurisdiction over state jail felonies.
the conference of counties has working with chairman solomons on an amendment that would make it up to the county Commissioners court on whether or not the county would participate in this reallocation of cases.
in Travis County where the number of cases per district judge is about 1-third of the number of -- the number of felony cases for district judge is about one-third of the cases for county court at law judge it may not make any sense at all for the county to reallocate -- to reallocate jurisdiction that way.
so this would at least give the county authority to make that decision.
I知 sorry, Commissioner.
>> when would that may language be submitted to mr. Solomons?
>> as I understand they're discussing that long with him.
what happened is while they were negotiating with them the bill was reported out of committee and sent to the house floor.
so I think this will there will be an effort to amend it to the house floor or amend it when it goes over to the senate.
my understanding is that chairman solomons is willing to work with us on that.
he's really trying to solve what he perceives as a local problem and therefore has no -- has no desire to create any problems for Travis County or for any other county.
>> will we hear from it again to make sure that he has actually dealt with the amendment, especially if empty option is those other counties that may have similar concerns?
>> I値l be -- my concern would be that we keep this item along with other items that are constantly developing as a running agenda item on the court's agenda and I can keep the court informed of any changes in that regard.
>> all right.
>> if there are any other questions, I値l ready to go on to the next bill.
>> okay.
senate bill 1323 and house bill 1906 relate to the amount of a discharge assessed on conviction of certain intoxicated driver offenses.
this is a bill that attempts to give local courts more options in terms of how they handle payment of fines, restitution and so forth on the part of the convicted drivers.
judge earl has asked us to postpone talking about this bill until next week when she can be more available.
so we're done with that item.
>> okay.
>> I知 going to move it along today.
house bill -- excuse me.
senate bill 2369 relate to go a preference for road construction bids that provide for the use of rubberized asphalt paving material.
you have in your packet backup material from cyd grimes our county purchasing agent.
basically what happens is the county now has the option to pick the road paving material that best meets the county's needs.
sometimes for high traffic, high volume roads, like a state highway or a major arterial, they will use rubberized asphalt, but that is entirely discretionary with the county.
rubberized asphalt costs between 15 and 20 percent more per same amount of road paved, and so cyd grimes has recommended that we oppose this bill in that it takes away the discretion that more properly belongs to the k.
>> what is tnr saying?
>> I actually have a memo from tnr, and we have people from tnr.
>> let me hear from tnr.
they're the ones that deal with this stuff.
>> carol joe self.
we actually said the same thing.
I don't think you got our memo, but we're saying the same thing, as a result of the rubberized asphalt it would cost us 15 to 18 percent more, and we pave with hot mix once a year, which is about $3.8 million, and on an average we use about 200 tons on normal paving.
so to force us to use this will cost the county considerably much more money than we hope to spend.
>> so the public need to hear you say that, ms. Joseph, what you just stated.
so since that's the case, tnr definitely is opposing it and of course cyd grimes is opposing it.
I guess as far as I知 concerned I would like to make a motion to oppose item e.
>> I will second that motion, but with a clarifying question.
I understand from tnr that this rubberized material is actually quite wonderful and it does extend the life of the road, just that given its current cost we haven't reached a tipping point where the extended life is worth the added cost.
am I correct about that?
>> that is correct.
>> the term wonderful may not be exactly, but it's used for hire he volume roadways, freeways, major arterials.
typically you wouldn't want to use it on a rural roadway.
it's just not economical.
for the most part our mileages, residential and typically rural, so it would definitely impact our budget on a daily basis.
one of the other things that you need to realize is that these asphalt plants that make this type of material, this is a special order mix.
so they're not out there making it day in, day out.
so if we want to go out and get 200 tons to fix potholes, we're out of luck because it's a special order.
these plants would actually shut down their typical process and have to turn around and make 200 tons for us when they typically make 3, 4,000 tons a day.
so the likelihood of us getting that on a daily basis is really slim.
so it would hurt all of our operations, just the daily maintenance pothole patching, edge repair, that sort of thing, would really suffer.
>> where are we -- as an ancillary matter, where are we in achieving a standardized mix for the region so that we can maximize our economies of scale with Williamson and the city of Austin?
>> typically we do go out, the txdot mix and the city of Austin mix, we do that now.
it's fairly standard.
>> that's wonderful.
thanks.
>> so we have a motion -- do we have a second?
okay.
all in favor?
thanks.
next item.
>> the next bill is house bill 2859.
this is a bill that would require public notice for auctions and would require more sense of public notice than is already given.
we already give public notice for auctions.
our purchasing agent cid dpriems was very concerned about this bill, however, she has talked to the people who are working with the author of the bill and there was a committee substitute laid out last week that is acceptable to cid and removes much of the financial burden of this new requirement that the bill would have at this point.
so at this point, we have no recommendation to give to the court on it.
we're not necessarily in support of the bill, but we're not opposed to it at this point.
>> okay.
so we'll postpone that until another time.
>> g?
>> senate bill 294 is the next bill on our agenda relate to go optional fees on the registration of a vehicle imposed by a county.
this is a bill that was created, I believe, two sessions ago.
it might have been just one session ago.
that applied only to one county in the valley and was designed specifically to allow additional fees to be collected on vehicle registrations in order to pay for a particular road project in that area.
what has happened now is that senator hin o'is a, who was the author of that orming bill, has now broadened it to allow any county to have access to an optional vehicle registration additional fee which could raise money for that county and could be used in order to do transportation projects.
as you know, local option trmtion funding has been -- transportation funding has been one of the court's priorities for this session.
the main vehicle for that has been senator john core Ron in a's bill that is now over in the house and its companion was heard this morning in the transportation committee.
they didn't finish testimony before the house had to go in.
so they will be considering actually that bill today in the house transportation committee.
but this is yet another option for doing that and I think in favor of a belt and suspenders approach to trying to get legislation passed that will give counties more option for local funding of transportation projects while keeping authority for making those decisions with the county level government, with the Commissioners court, I think that the court should support this bill.
>> I move that we declare our support for this bill.
it's a very elegant and very simple way to address some of our transportation shortfalls.
>> second.
all in favor?
>> Commissioner Eckhardt, you look like obi won knobi.
>> I feel like obi won knobi in "star wars" iii on the frozen planet.
>> [ laughter ] where they have to like cut open the animal and sleep in it to keep from freezing to death.
>> the final item that we have for the court this morning is house bill 1271.
this is a bill that we talked about last week.
if you remember, we mentioned a package of three bills that representative eddie rodriguez has filed having to do with fowrnl.
this was the second of those three bills and it has to do with transit oriented districts.
as you know, the city of Austin has created seven transit oriented districts around each of the hubs for its rail line for the cap metro rail line, and this bill would permit the creation of a tif around each of those with 25% of the revenue from the tif dedicated to affordable housing in that area.
the court looked at this bill last week and decided not to take action at that time just to give people more chance to look at it.
I think the court also asked the question of whether or not the bill was moving.
it had not been scheduled for a committee hearing as of this time -- as of this time last week or as of this time this week.
>> so can we wait on that?
>> yes, we can, absolutely.
there's -- I would prefer that if a committee hearing get set that the court already have taken a position, but a committee hearing has not been set as of today and I don't know -- I致e not heard from representative rodriguez's office what he thinks about the likelihood of that.
>> I知 going to tell you right up front I知 opposed to this regardless of when it comes back to the court and whether we do it today or whenever.
normally what ends up happening is if it's opposed, of course you have to have a majority on this court, which means (indiscernible).
and in fairness to the judge in his absence, I don't think it may be appropriate to look at that time until you have a full court.
I don't know if you have -- with me voting against it, of course, but not -- it wouldn't go through.
so just in fairness to the court, I think especially on these legislative items, we sometimes need to look at that, otherwise the way our rules are set up, you would have to have at least four.
but I知 definitely going to oppose this.
it's directly related to within the area of the -- and tied in directly to house bill 3983, which is all encompassed.
and you know what my position is on 3983.
I致e talked with many, many residents in that area and they don't like it.
>> my recommendation in that case would be that the court not take any action this week.
>> let's wait a week.
>> I don't think there's any urgency.
>> in the meantime we'll hear whether there's a committee hearing or something else.
all right.
okay.
>> that concludes the legislative items unless members of the court have any questions.
>> other comments about legislation on this item?
if not, thank you so much.
we have completed our Commissioners court business.
>> move adjourn.
>> second.
>> all in favor?
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Last Modified:
Tuesday, April 21, 2009 6:38 PM